


Like Ink Through Her Veins

by grainjew



Series: stared at the sun and the sun smiled back and called itself pirate king (or: loyalty, on the high seas) [13]
Category: One Piece
Genre: F/F, Female Characters, Gen, Loyalty, Timeskip, arthurian symbolism but its really vague and also gay, the Rome Ants are very background but they are there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23806720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Vivi manages, away from her crew. Usually, managing means ruling a country, reading the newspaper, and checking up on her father.Sometimes, though, it means sneaking out of the palace at midnight and getting drunk with passing pirates.
Relationships: Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Nefertari Vivi, Nami/Nefertari Vivi, Nefertari Vivi & Terracotta (One Piece)
Series: stared at the sun and the sun smiled back and called itself pirate king (or: loyalty, on the high seas) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1062338
Comments: 32
Kudos: 252





	Like Ink Through Her Veins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurochsent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurochsent/gifts).



> inspired by amazaria's [Rising suns, free waters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23639983), because the snippets she kept sending to the discord server while writing it made me want to have a vivi fic to work on too
> 
> dedicated to aurochsent, for their help with alabastian politics and because they finally caught up with one piece after listening to me infodump for two years solid and i think that’s pretty cool of them

**Sun**

_A year has passed since Straw Hat Luffy rang the Ox Bell in Marineford Plaza as a declaration of war. Nothing has been heard from him since, even as the rest of the Worst Generation rampages across the Grand Line. Could he be dead? Could he have backed down? Was it a hoax? Is the monster worth 400 million beri finally defeated?_

_More on page 5, and turn to page 2 for details on the construction of New Marineford._

Vivi dropped the newspaper on her desk. 

She didn’t know why she bothered. There hadn’t been anything concrete on the Straw Hats since that article a year ago, and anything there _was_ only served to make her angrier at the World Government and the way the papers treated her crew. Sure, they were pirates. Sure, they flouted the law, spoke defiance to the world, and left chaos in their wake. Sure, their captain was selfish with a paralyzing ferocity and an intensity that made armies step backwards and take a knee. Sure.

But they’d saved her country, and the Marines had taken credit.

And she missed them.

“Princess?” said Terracotta. She’d come in while Vivi was reading, clicking the door shut behind her, but Vivi had been too hungry for news of her crew and then too incensed to look up. “Is everything alright?” 

Vivi sighed. Then, to steady her hands and keep up appearances, she folded the newspaper properly. Looked over at Terracotta, by the door. “Just fine.” 

Terracotta was holding a plate of halved dates and basbousa in her hands. She stared at Vivi skeptically, then walked over, moved some papers to make space for the dish, and set it down. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”

“Thank you, Terracotta.” The politeness slipped automatically from Vivi’s mouth. Midafternoon sun streamed through arched windows, searing metal into blinding gold. There were piles of papers on her desk, meeting minutes and petitions and damage reports and letters from dignitaries. She put a piece of basbousa in her mouth. “Oh! The flavor’s different!”

Terracotta smiled. “In a good way, I hope?”

“Yeah, it tastes amazing!” _Not as good as anything Sanji made, though,_ Vivi didn’t say. Sanji could make plain couscous taste godly if he wanted, so it really wasn’t a fair comparison. Especially given Terracotta was normally cooking for five hundred people, as opposed to Sanji’s five. “What did you do?”

“Finally got my hands on that recipe my sister’s been keeping to herself for a decade,” said Terracotta. She smiled wickedly. If it hadn’t been the same smile Nami wore nearly every minute she was awake, Vivi would have trembled. “Took her long enough to cave. She should have known I never lose.”

Vivi didn’t doubt it. Terracotta was formidable enough to take Luffy’s appetite as a challenge and for that alone she would have had Vivi’s respect, nevermind her ability to coordinate the housekeeping staff and make miracles out of cloth. She was the closest thing Vivi had to a confidant these days, barring Karoo, who despite his sometimes startling intelligence was still a duck. She stuffed another piece of basbousa in her mouth. “It’s delicious.”

Terracotta pulled up the other chair and sat down ponderously. “Good.” She helped herself to a date. “Now what’s eating at you, Princess? It _can’t_ be the Merchant Council, you’ve got them on their toes like I’ve never seen before with the rebuilding.”

Vivi stared out the window, at crisp white stone and endless sand and the people she loved. Terracotta must have put orange blossom in the basbousa. The flavor was incredible. “Do you ever wish you could let yourself be selfish?”

Terracotta snorted. “Princess, don’t we all?”

Not for the first time, Vivi wished she could see the sea from Alubarna. 

Whenever she could, Vivi took trips to Nanohana to smell the salt. Now that her father couldn’t travel much, with his health, she made sure to visit the rest of the country, too, and to speak with the citizens — both law-abiding and law-defying — about policy being considered and about their concerns and fears and wants. She refused to be a princess who did not consider her people, or a princess who went untrusted. But whenever she could, she took a weekend trip down the river to Nanohana’s ports.

Her excuse to Igaram and anyone else who asked was that Nanohana was Alabasta’s center of trade and industry, and there were a number of committees located there that Vivi herself had spearheaded regarding the country’s supply lines and seaward defense. And it was true that her trips to Nanohana were primarily functional: She spent her days negotiating with the various regional councils and her nights negotiating with the city’s less scrupulous underbelly as criminal, informant, and patriot Nimue, who was half Miss Wednesday and half Nami. Between meetings, she did what she could for the royal family’s public relations, toured public art installations the locals wanted Princess Vivi to see, and — her true aim — stared at the sea.

Ignoring the way Terracotta’s face creased deeper in concern each passing second, Vivi reached for the newspaper and unfolded it. Luffy’s face stared back at her from a corner — the front page was dominated by a headline about an incident at Rocky Port, which Vivi would read later. Right now, she only had eyes for her captain, and for the article slandering his name. Terracotta’s gaze followed her hand, as she touched it. 

An urge to crumple the paper and toss it violently out the window. Let the wind tear it to pieces and the sun burn it white. Let the sands take it into their hidden heart. Let the sea swallow it whole. She didn’t need to hear some ignorant reporter’s opinion on the Straw Hat Pirates, especially when it was going to be wrong. 

Especially when they didn’t _know,_ about the endless kindness behind the squalls of Nami’s eyes, when she would put her hand all soft on top of Vivi’s and smile like Vivi was something more amazing than gold. Especially when they didn’t know about Chopper’s steady compassion as he ordered rest, yes, even you, until your stitches are out; when they’d never shared a beer with Zoro, skies starry overhead and wind in their hair; when they’d never seen Sanji fuss for hours over ratios and spice blends because he could tell Vivi was homesick and wanted to make her something that tasted like Alabasta; when they’d never talked with Usopp, just the two of them and whitecapped waves, about how unbearable it was to be helpless. Especially when they hadn’t heard Luffy promise, _I will defeat him who has your country by the throat, murder in his eyes, and seize it back for you whole._

Especially when they hadn’t been there when he _did._

“I don’t think you get it,” said Vivi. She let go her grip and smoothed out the paper from where she’d grabbed it, then looked at her hands. “It’s all I can do, sometimes, to keep myself from commandeering a ship out of our ports and sailing off blindly to look for him. It’s all I can do to remember my people and my country, when the wind is on my face or the sea is in my ears or I can hear them saying my name in my dreams.”

“Princess…” said Terracotta. She picked up the last piece of basbousa and held it out, ever a cook. “Eat, or I made this for nothing.”

Vivi took it, and ate, because that was Terracotta’s way of saying she cared. The woman was hardly able with words, but even when Vivi had been a child of six she’d always had a cookie or a fig to trade for tears.

Terracotta ate another date, herself. “For what it’s worth, Princess, I think you did the right thing.” Terracotta held up a hand before Vivi could even open her mouth. “Let me say my piece, if you don’t mind, Princess?” 

Vivi nodded and picked up a date. If she didn’t eat some now, Terracotta would have them all finished before she could even get a bite. And if she didn’t let Terracotta talk, she wouldn’t get any dates for _days._

“I think you did the right thing,” said Terracotta again, “for this country, and for its people. You’ve done more good for Alabasta in a year than most kings do in a lifetime, and Princess, you’re only poised to take that further. And if I may, Princess, I’m proud of you.” 

Terracotta looked at her with that mother’s gaze, that gaze that had raised Vivi after her own mother’s death, looked at her with those eyes that had seen her grow up and spill her secrets and almost abandon her country for a life of piracy. Terracotta looked at her, and her gaze was proud, and there was sun on her face, and Vivi felt her own eyes well up. And she let the tears come, because she was a Straw Hat and a Straw Hat knew better than to pretend she had no use for crying.

“Not just for what you’ve done for the country, either, or how much you’ve grown,” continued Terracotta. “I saw how you looked at them, back then, Princess; I saw how they looked at you. If someone looked at _me_ like that, I’d be gone in an instant, duty or no duty. But you stayed, somehow, and Alabasta is the better for it, Alabasta is _blossoming_ for it, and that’s why you made the right choice.”

“I know,” said Vivi, because she did, and that was what hurt. And then, “Thank you.” She swiped her sleeve across her eyes. “I’m honored you think so well of me. But I—”

Terracotta took Vivi’s hands in hers, like she used to do when Vivi was small. When Terracotta would sometimes let herself say _Sweetheart_ instead of _Princess,_ when there were no oceans in Vivi’s mind, when her heart beat snugly in her chest instead of halfway across the world. When everything was simple, and Vivi wanted nothing more than to grow up to be a queen as great as her mother had been.

And now Nami held Vivi’s heart like she held jewels, and Luffy had her soul in his palm and always, always would, but her body still belonged to Alabasta, her hands to her people and her feet to her country, and sometimes Vivi hated that more than anything, because Luffy taught her selfishness and Nami taught her delight and a Straw Hat was supposed to be nothing less than free.

“There were orders, in that article a year ago.” She looked up, to meet Terracotta’s eyes. “Orders from a captain to a crew who couldn’t reach him. More than how much I love my country, that’s what keeps me here: that Luffy reached across space and told me _stay,_ and that I understood when I had no way to understand.”

Terracotta blinked a little, and then sighed like she was at a loss. She glanced down at the newspaper, and then back up. “Similarly to how you were willing to trust about Nico Robin?”

Vivi still remembered Miss All-Sunday’s — _Nico Robin’s_ — sly smile, so amused it wrapped all the way back around to bitter. She had no idea what had gone on between the woman _(hands where hands should not be, plans thrown in disarray, Alabasta slipping out of reach like sand through fingers)_ and Luffy. She hardly had any idea what had happened at Enies Lobby, even, except what she’d managed to glean from newspaper articles and drunk gossip in bars. 

But whatever it was, Nico Robin was crew now. 

Vivi’s memory was all sand, and a harsh slap, and promises. On that day in Alabasta’s dunes, scuffed and battered and tearstained, she’d given Luffy all the trust she’d had and never bothered to take it back. She had faith in her captain. So Nico Robin was crew.

“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”

She untangled her hands from Terracotta’s, and put the last date in her mouth. Terracotta was frozen for a moment, staring still, and then picked up the platter, inclined her head. They could both tell the conversation was over, then. Vivi almost wished they hadn’t had it in the first place, because all it had done was make her feel raw.

Terracotta stood. “I’ll leave you to it then, if it pleases you, Princess. And I’ll see you this evening for measurements for that replacement gown.”

“I’ll be there,” said Vivi, even though the only place she wanted to be was on the deck of the Straw Hats’ ship, laughing and tipsy under the moonlight. But that would be selfish, and wishing away the hours helped nobody, least of all a country still recovering its balance. She had work to do. She had bills to look over for the Minister of Agriculture, potential allies to charm, policy decisions to run by her father and the Council. She’d better get started. “And, Terracotta? Thank you.”

**Moon**

Vivi snuck out, that night. She tried not to without reason, mostly because it meant she hardly got any sleep and therefore wouldn’t be at her best the next day, but that article was all she could think about, and indignation left her tossing and turning until she stood up and slipped on rough clothes Igaram didn’t know she still had. Soft-soled boots for sneaking, a thick hooded coat for the desert cold, a short coded note so that Karoo wouldn’t panic if he woke to find her gone. Peacock slashers stashed up her sleeves just in case.

Pell would most likely be sleeping perched on the ledge above her window in case of emergencies, and there were two guards outside the door. Vivi understood the paranoia, for all it made life incredibly inconvenient— with multiple assassination attempts in just the past month and her father spending so much time bedbound, caution was more than reasonable. But the increased security just meant she had to be more careful. If anything, it was good practice.

Quietly, breathing short and shallow, Vivi climbed two floors down the outside wall and slipped back into the palace through another window. This was a guest room for visiting dignitaries, currently empty. Two doors down from it was a small storage closet, though, and in there lay Vivi’s real goal: a passage that would lead her all the way underground, past the kitchens, and out through to just outside the plaza. It had been originally intended in case of siege, and then over the years adapted into a servants’ corridor for quick access to guests. 

Vivi slipped inside, mind finally awake. There was nothing quite like stealth, except perhaps the thrill of knowing an entire room hung on your words. 

The kitchens were bustling with dishwashing and late-night meals for those guards whose shifts spanned the night, so Vivi was able to pass by along the edge mostly unseen until a pair of maids kissing discreetly behind a pile of unwashed dishes spotted her. She winked at them. _I won’t tell if you won’t._

They grinned and went back to their kissing.

And finally, she was out. Hood low, distinctive blue hair tied all the way back. Sleeves pulled down just far enough to cover the X tattooed on her wrist but leave the intimation of ink. No finery. Coins scattered through several different pockets so that they wouldn’t clang. Gait deliberately confident, but not regal. 

She looked up at the sky, all dotted with stars like Luffy had knocked over Usopp’s buckets of paint, and walked into Alubarna.

Her third-favorite bar, the _Warusagi’s Nest,_ was located near the outskirts of the city, a significant enough walk that Vivi normally wouldn’t risk it leaving this late. But her second-favorite bar had seen too much of her face the past months, and she’d been banned from her favorite after one too many meetings turned violent. Honestly, would it kill Alabasta’s underworld to talk without trying to kill her?

She covered the distance in good time, sticking to the shadows and calling as little attention to herself as she could. It wouldn’t do for Nimue to be seen coming and going — half her edge on the people she dealt with was simply that nobody knew who she was or where she came from, just that she stood for Alabasta and had ways to make them listen. 

The _Warusagi’s Nest_ was mostly empty for once, and Vivi breathed a sigh of relief. She was here to get drunk, not break up yet another spat for territory. Mitigating the chaos of the power vacuum Baroque Works left behind was a job that left her ruling on half an hour’s sleep, some days, but everything felt worth it when she was able to step between two rival bosses, lamplight glinting off her teeth, and tell them to stand down. And have them _listen._ She’d already resolved that if she had to become queen of Alabasta’s underworld as well as queen of it in law to keep the peace, she would, and she would have no regrets. She’d already been a pirate and a bounty hunter: what was a mob boss but the logical next step?

But that would come later.

“Bouza, please,” she said, to the bartender. She hoped the commonness of the drink would offset her instinctive politeness. She’d developed a taste for it during her infiltration of Baroque Works, and it had been a disappointment she still occasionally felt to find out that young Princess Vivi was not allowed to drink workmens’ barley-and-bread beer. 

“Here you are, Miss,” said the bartender — an Alubarna native named Noor, Vivi remembered —, slamming a large mug down in front of her. “You putting that on a tab?”

“Yes, please,” said Vivi, and then nearly winced at the _please_ as she grabbed her drink and left for a corner table. She was out of _practice._ Late nights and her piles of paperwork be damned, she needed to get out more. Nimue wasn’t the kind of woman who said _please_ every other sentence, and Nimue — as intended — was developing a reputation.

The door opened. 

“—lost ‘em,” a massive pink-haired woman was saying. Her hair was in two braids, and the swords crossed over her back clacked against each other as she sat down at the bar.

“I hope so…” said one of the men trailing her. “Some kind of pirates we are, stranded in the middle of an island again.”

Pirates, huh? Alubarna was so landlocked it usually only saw the sort of criminals who liked solid ground. Or, as solid as dunes ever got. Pirates in Alubarna usually meant they were running from something, and didn’t have the common sense or ability to go out to sea instead of up a river. Black Cage Hina would hardly have mercy on their way back out, after all. Vivi just had to find out if they were the kind of pirates she’d help escape, or the kind she’d help capture. 

“Oh, shut up, we’ve got our shadows, haven’t we? We’re fine.” That was another crewmember, in the process of claiming a table. Vivi counted two dozen men and women, hardy all and swarming over the chairs and barstools like ants.

“Just fine,” agreed the woman with the pink hair. Vivi recognized her vaguely, presumably from a bounty poster, so she was likely the captain. “Oi, barkeep!”

Noor walked over, utterly unbothered. Vivi loved this bar. “What can I get for you?”

“A round of whatever you’ve got for me and the crew, and…” The woman paused, looking hopeful. “Do you happen to have any chiffon cake?”

Noor blinked. “No,” she said shortly. “Bakery three blocks down might, but you’ll have to wait for them to open. Why would a bar have _cake?_ ”

“A woman can hope,” said the woman with pink hair, blandly.

Noor shrugged as if to say _I suppose,_ and then turned to fix drinks as the pirates made themselves at home. Vivi sipped her beer and tried not to smile.

“Hey, Captain, you wouldn’t believe who’s in the paper again!” A pirate with fluffy russet hair tied back in a tail rolled up a newspaper and speared it across the room to hit the pink-haired woman.

“You didn’t have to throw it _at_ me,” she grumbled, but opened it anyway. Vivi put down a mental point towards helping these pirates get around Black Cage Hina and not sending in Pell and Chaka like the vengeful gods they were. A captain with that mild a temper towards her crew spoke volumes.

What had happened to drive them to Alubarna? They were relatively unharmed, save the wear and tear of travel and a rough life, and the being covered in sand of crossing the desert to get to Alubarna. Their clothes certainly weren’t local… Vivi really needed to work on her information network.

Then the pink-haired woman snorted loudly. "Straw Hat Luffy, dead?" She slammed her hands down on the bar so hard it shook. "With a crew like that? Ha! As _if._ "

Vivi blinked. She blinked again. Then she stood up, walked over to the woman, pushed the man sitting next to her off his stool — "excuse me, my apologies" — and said, sitting down, "You know Straw Hat Luffy?"

The woman stared her down. "And what's it to you if I do, girl?"

Vivi stared back, considering her response and trying to remember who the woman was. She’d memorized so many bounty posters they all blended together in her mind. 

“I have something of an interest in his fate,” said Vivi finally. The woman frowned, and recognition finally _clicked_ in Vivi’s mind. “Marriage Proposal Lola, I presume? You may call me Nimue.”

“I _may_ call you anything I like,” said Marriage Proposal Lola. She tossed back the last of her mug and banged on the counter for a refill. “Nimue, huh? That loyalist folks down in Tamarisk were on about?”

Vivi sipped her beer at a more sedate pace. Good to know her name was getting around even to passing pirates. “The very same.”

“Marry me?”

Vivi blinked.

“Captain, I thought you wanted a _husband?_ ” asked the pirate Vivi had pushed off his stool. He’d gotten back on his feet, glowering at Vivi, and was standing next to the crewmate of his who’d taken the stool on Marriage Proposal Lola’s other side.

“That’s five thousand eight hundred and sixty two,” said that other one, blandly.

“A woman gets desperate, Risky,” said Marriage Proposal Lola, her voice clipped. “So, Nimue?”

“My apologies,” said Vivi, voice honeyed. _I’m taken, thank you,_ she didn’t say, for the sake of her reputation. “I’m not looking for love at the moment.”

“Ah well,” sighed Marriage Proposal Lola, who apparently really did live up to her epithet. “Someday, I’ll find the right one.”

“That’s the spirit!” said the crewmember she’d called Risky. “Fate’ll smile on you eventually!”

Marriage Proposal Lola flashed him a grin. Vivi drained the last of her beer, frowned at the empty mug, and gestured for a refill.

“So,” said Vivi, keeping her tone neutral as polished stone, “how do you know Lu— Straw Hat Luffy, Marriage Proposal Lola?”

Marriage Proposal Lola raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know Alabasta’s underworld had such an interest in one pirate.”

“Then you don’t know much about Alabasta.”

“I suppose I don’t,” said Marriage Proposal Lola, meeting her gaze. 

Noor refilled their mugs as they stared at each other. Vivi bit down a snarl. She was getting _nowhere,_ and she had a council meeting at dawn, and she missed her friends. She recognized, objectively, that one of the most valuable traits to have when gathering information was the same patience she’d spent years cultivating, and that getting angry made her reckless, and that she was really not all that great at keeping secrets, and that for all she knew this woman could be an agent of the World Government, and that alcohol couldn’t be _helping_ her inhibitions, even though she’d only had the one round so far.

But she also decided that she didn’t _care._ Marriage Proposal Lola knew enough about the Straw Hats to react appropriately to that article, and she was good to her crew. It was time to gamble.

“I’m not asking for my country,” Vivi corrected, reaching under her sleeve to touch the X tattooed on her forearm. If her voice was rawer and more desperate than she’d have liked, well, _she_ was rawer and more desperate than she’d have liked. “I’m asking for _me._ ”

“You’ve met him,” said Marriage Proposal Lola.

Vivi nodded, heart in her throat.

“You’re friends with him,” continued Marriage Proposal Lola. Her breath caught. “No— he saved you.”

The bar was silent, Vivi realized. The pirates had their eyes on their captain, and Noor was eavesdropping shamelessly. Well— she’d deal with that later, because she recognized the look in Marriage Proposal Lola’s eyes, a startled kind of awe that would never quite fade, and she recognized the way the woman leaned forward, eager. The Straw Hats built bonds that held strong across any distance: it was a small thing to tug on them and find out who was on the other end.

“He saved you too.”

Marriage Proposal Lola breathed out. “And my crew.”

Vivi said, “And my country.”

“Call me Lola.” And then: “Three years, we hid. It hardly took them a night.”

Vivi shut her eyes, and saw Crocodile falling defeated into the center of the square. “Who was it, for you?”

“Gecko Moria.” Lola took a long drink. “Hardly know why I’m telling you, when— But it was Gecko Moria.”

“Another Warlord.” Vivi laughed, shortly. “I should have known. I presume there was a coverup?”

“ _Another?_ ” said Lola. She ignored the question about a coverup, which Vivi assumed meant the answer was yes.

“Crocodile. I believe the Marines took credit, but everyone that matters knows we— the Straw Hats did all the work.”

“‘Everyone that matters…’ You talk like them, Nimue,” said Lola.

“Do I?” said Vivi. 

“No question.” Lola’s face went all faraway and reminiscent. “I think I remember… It was late, I was drunk, we’d been partying all night to celebrate our freedom. But I remember Nami telling Brook about their last crewmember, a girl from the desert who stayed behind because she loved her country more than anything. Her eyes were so bright…” Lola picked up Vivi’s wrist and pulled back the sleeve, exposing the X tattooed there like a memorial. For some reason, Vivi let her. “Her name was Vivi, I think. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Vivi, because Lola’s eyes were soft and she had mentioned Nami’s name. “That’s me.”

A ringing clatter, like the breaking of glass. 

Oh. 

Oh no. This was a bar. Vivi had an audience. It wasn’t just her and Lola and the specters of the Straw Hat Pirates.

She looked up and met Noor’s wide eyes. Noor, citizen of Alabasta and observant bartender, who had seen Vivi speak civilly with criminal elements from all over the country. Noor, who had dropped the glass she was polishing and hadn’t even gone for a broom.

 _Fuck,_ thought Vivi.

Focus, she told herself. This can be an opportunity. Figure out how.

Noor was still staring.

“Excuse me for a moment, Lola,” said Vivi, and didn’t wait for an answer. “Noor. I trust you won’t speak a word of this?”

“O-of course not, Your Highness,” said Noor. 

No, that wouldn’t do at all. Vivi refused to have her people afraid of her because of her title. “As long as my identity and association with the Straw Hat Pirates stays a secret, you have Princess Vivi and Nimue’s protection both: I swear on my life. Find me, and I’ll do my best to help.” And that looked just enough like bribery to unsettle her in the other direction, damn. “And call me Nimue, please.”

Noor nodded rapidly, eyes wide. “Yes ma’am.”

Well, that was better than Your Highness. Now— aha. “Noor, I have a proposition for you.” And that _also_ sounded threatening. “One you are free to refuse.”

Noor blinked at her, then chanced a glance down at the glass she’d broken.

“I am what I am for the sake of Alabasta,” said Vivi. She sipped her beer. “You are in a position that allows you to hear information no-one else has access to. I ask that you inform me of any plots that would threaten the stability of this country, should they enter your notice. Of course you will be compensated.” Vivi smiled, and tried to make it look as benign as possible. “You don’t have to decide now, of course. I’ll be back in a week or two; we can talk then.”

Noor nodded again, all jerkily, and then pushed through some wide-eyed pirates — “Out of my way, or do you _want_ to step on glass?” — to clear a path to the broom closet. 

Vivi turned back to Lola and took a long drink.

“You’re a princess?” asked Lola.

“Yes, I’m a princess.” Vivi wanted, just a little bit, to rewind the evening and avoid this conversation at all costs. And the conversation she’d just had. And the decision to get drunk at the _Warusagi’s Nest._

Lola whistled. “Whoa, Nami scored big.”

Vivi blushed. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Miss Nimue. You didn’t see her face, half-drunk and singing your praises.”

“She can _get_ drunk?”

“Okay, yeah, she was probably pretending.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Lola snorted, then looked down at her mug. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask her to marry me, you know,” she said. “What if she’d said no?”

“She would have,” answered Vivi, utterly certain.

“Figures,” said Lola, and took a drink.

“She’d have stayed with me, if she didn’t love freedom and her captain so much,” explained Vivi. She was rambling, but somehow she didn’t want to stop. “I’d have gone with her, if I didn’t love Alabasta so much. With them. With him.”

Vivi thought about it, sometimes, when she was willing to indulge selfishness in herself. She thought about seaspray on her face, parties until sunrise, climbing the mast in a storm. She thought about an unchained freedom, about sitting out on deck with Nico Robin as they fumbled to understand each other. About Usopp tinkering with his projects, beside them. About Luffy jumping into the ocean and Chopper jumping after him— did they still do that?

She thought about Zoro drenched in blood, smiling like he’d been personally blessed by a higher power. Except of course he didn’t believe in those. Normally, Vivi was pretty sure that kind of attitude would get someone killed, but Zoro would probably survive divine vengeance simply because it wasn’t made of swords. She thought about Sanji, up before dawn.

Sometimes, she thought about Nami letting coins run through her hands when it was just the two of them in the womens’ quarters, her eyes glittering-bright. _This one’s from Loguetown,_ she would say, pointing at a small detail on the front. _It’s one of East Blue’s biggest cities, so they’ve got a mint there._ Then she would laugh all ruefully and add, _A mint I would have gotten to steal from, too, if Luffy hadn’t gone and caused a commotion with his almost getting killed._ Vivi would crack a smile, and Nami would hand her the coin so that their fingers touched. _For you._

And then Luffy would barrel in, laughing like a devil, and send coins scattering all over the floor, and Nami would chase him right back off because he may be allowed in their room but he wasn’t allowed to spill her money.

She wondered where he was. She wondered how he was.

She wondered why he had given his crew the most excruciating order he could possibly give, short of abandoning him to die.

“He’s my _captain,_ ” sobbed Vivi, her voice all ragged. Even to herself, she sounded lonely and vulnerable, in a way only her crew were supposed to see. Where had her years of training gone, her poise and her patience and her masks? But her throat was choked with tears. “My captain, who saved my country because I asked him to. My captain. Mine.”

Lola’s hand on her shoulder. Vivi looked up, eyes blurry.

“They slander him, like they don’t know he’ll be King of the Seas yet.” Vivi made a noise that was supposed to be a laugh but mostly just sounded like a sob. “Like they don’t know I _miss him._ ”

Lola stood up, then, a woman Vivi hardly knew except for the fishing line Straw Hat Luffy had wrapped around them both with his smile. It was a strangely liberating thing, to hand off the burden of trust to someone else. Vivi hardly knew Marriage Proposal Lola, but Vivi was a Straw Hat, and through that bond she felt like she’d known Lola her whole life. 

Lola wrapped her arms around Vivi, strong and kind, and whispered: “I’ve never seen that crew break a promise. You’ll see them again yet.”

Vivi let herself be held.

She had a council meeting at dawn, and trade negotiations after that, but right now, that didn't matter. She could get through all that on no sleep. She'd done it before. And this was so, so much more important than governing, or keeping a clear head, or being the Princess. The world could wait until she was done being Vivi-who-missed-her-crew, and then she’d get back to it.

She was a Straw Hat Pirate, after all. Selfishness was in her blood.

**Author's Note:**

> vivi voice yeah im gonna stay home, i cant justify being selfish  
> vivi, at home: becomes a mob boss in her spare time
> 
> vivi’s fake name is nimue because, one, vivian/vivienne/etc are some of the many alternate names nimue from arthurian myth is known by, and two, well… vivi wooed a powerful wizard who acts as the advisor to a King (although arguably, with her Fata Morgana attack, nami’s got more morgan le fay vibes than merlin vibes. but, yknow, arthurian wizards,)
> 
> her having an X tattoo was inspired by [X](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372501) by faktory, which i read like two years ago and which stuck with me so deeply i haven't been able to stop thinking about it since


End file.
